What you’ll Need

Lining fabric – I use cotton because breathe-ability is good, and this will be against my skin directly

Pins. A lot of pins

An iron handy

Masking or painter’s tape

Sharpie

Pen or chalk pencil

Patience

Cut out the pieces

Expect a lot of help if you have a helper.

PLEASE NOTE that the compilation shows the plastic pieces used as pattern here, and that is WRONG. Use your adjusted muslin bits unless you feel like making all the corrections a second time. (But I’m lazy so I only do it once).

We’ll need to cut out the pieces three times, one for each layer: Fashion layer, interlining and lining. Well, and out of the interfacing for the lining. Four times. Cut them out four times.

Now bust out your painter’s tape and sharpie. Write down the pattern piece’s name and number on the tape and stick it on the back of the interlining with the text facing up the corset.

Like when we wrote on our muslin pieces, the tape will help keep you from sewing pieces in backwards or upside down. Or in the wrong order. More than any other pattern type, corsets can get confusing because the pieces look similar.

Master Basting (it’s super useful)

Okay! So. Lowbrow jokesTremendously funny puns aside, basting is pretty important here because the pattern treats the fashion layer and the interlining as one layer while sewing.

Behold, my artistic talent in MS Paint.

Here blue is the fashion layer, peach is the interliningand green is the lining.Red is Thread(purely because it rhymes)

So, There’s two ways to approach basting: by hand or by machine, and as usual there’s benefits to both.

By hand lets you have absolute control on the fabric, but it takes longer and if you have pain in your joints it’ll hurt after a while.

By machine is faster but gives you less control over the fabric. It’ll also take longer to rip out later on.

How do you Baste with a Machine?
If you’re lucky, there’ll be a basting option which similar to straight stitch but long, long stitches. If you’re on an older machine, set your length to the longest possible stitch and sew close to the edge of the fabric pieces to avoid unnecessary holes in the fabric.

Then sew all your pieces together. The fashion layer should be good side OUT. The interlining… doesn’t really matter so long as it’s consistent.

When you serge, you’re going to lose any notches or marks that are on the edge of the pattern. So unless you’re confident about matching the lines up without any guides (I’m not) Mark the notches at least a quarter of an inch away from the edge on the fabric. Anything closer will get covered by the serged threads.

Because the interlining will never be seen I used a ballpoint pen because I’ve run out of tailor’s chalk. This will only work because my fashion layer is black, and the ink won’t show if it bleeds. You should probably just use chalk.

Time for (elective) Sergery

Why bother finishing the edges when we’ll be enclosing them within more seams? Well, its all a matter of how long and well you want the corset to last. Because corsets are under more strain than usual garments, especially if they’re being used for slimming purposes, the seams will tug and pull. Serging will help keep the fabric from fraying within the seams and also from fraying as you work with it.

Puzzling out the Pieces

Sew your Seams

This bit is pretty straight forward, but I’ll break down how I did it to save time and make things easier on myself. Instead of sewing everything together all at once, I did it in groups of two, grouped as below:

Stage 1

Right Front Panel to Right Front Center

Right Side Front to Right Side Back

Right Back Center to Right Back Panel

Repeat on left.

Then, for each pair I sewed the seams, pressed them flat, then sewed the boning channels, and pressed again before I moved on to adding the next pairs together.

Naturally everything was supervised for quality’s sake.

I only joined the next pieces when the seams were complete. Corsets are made to be curvy, and I didn’t want to try to sew flat boning channels when the fabric is trying to be all curvy and getting in my way.

Remember while sewing to use the 5/8” seam allowance! otherwise you won’t have enough space for your corset bones.

Press Your F@%# Seams

Okay. So. Sometimes we all get a little lazy and we’re like oh but it’s cool, this will be fine, I don’t need to press it right now. But with corsets that shit’s important. Corsets are made to lay flat against your skin, and especially with foundation garments, the last thing we want is buckled or wrinkling fabric.

Press the seams open. Do it. DO IT.

Sewing Boning Channels

SINCE YOU OBVIOUSLY PRESSED YOUR SEAMS LIKE I TOLD YOU TO, the next step will be easy. Sew down each side of the seam flaps with the specified distance. I find it easiest to sew with the seam flaps UP (interlining facing up) to make sure that they don’t wrinkle or anything.

When you’re done a seam, the other side should look like this:

I keep a sticky roller by my sewing machine for obvious reasons.

Repeat for each seam then press your seams AGAIN before you move on to the next stage of sewing:

Stage 2

Right Front Panel to Left Front Panel

Right Side Back to Right Back Center

Left Side Back to Left Back Center

Repeat sewing, seam pressing, channels, pressing then:

Stage 3

Right Side Front to Right Front Center

Left Side Front to Left Front Center

When you’re done the garment should be doing two noticeable things: 1) looking like an actual corset, and 2) feel stiffer due to the boning channels acting a bit like pad stitching.

I’m going to share the best advice I’ve ever heard on corsetry, because it really clarified the basic concept of a corset that I’d had wrong.

A lot of people think it’s the bones that help shape a corset, but it’s not. The fabric should be doing all the work when it comes to altering the body’s shape. The bones are only there to hold the fabric flat against you and prevent wrinkling.

Basically at this stage, the corset should be able to work as an actual corset and get the shape you want. The bones will help support your bust and keep the fabric tight to your body, but corsets can have steel bones and still not fit you well or be comfortable because the fabric isn’t tailored to your actual shape.

PS: If you fit a corset to yourself right and you’re not tight-lacing, a corset SHOULD be comfortable. Just don’t expect full lung capacity.

Boob Cups

We’ll be attaching these later, after we’ve put in the bones, so in the meantime sew the cups halves together, and press flat.

I felt really smart when I realised that a great way to press the boob cup seams was to use the nose of my ironing board.

Extra Credit: Waist ribbon

Okay boys and girls and non-binaries, This next part is completely optional. It is NOT in the pattern but since I plan to use the hell out of this corset, and I’ve added an extra inch to the length, I’ve decided to add a waist ribbon in to help stabilize the corset as I wear it over time.

This isn’t necessary if you used a high quality coutil specifically made for corsetry, but since I’m using twill scraps, I figured that a little extra stability couldn’t hurt.

Ah, such beautiful clashing colours.

I’ve used a scrap of ribbon from my Goat costume, and cut it to the width of the corset at the waist. Because it’s a polyester ribbon I then melted the edges with a lighter to keep it from fraying and pinned it down at the WAIST of the corset. (Your muslin will come in handy for this if you marked the waist on it.)

Then, very carefully stitch over the ribbon in the ditch along each seam. (Basically sew along the seam line so it’s not visible from the outside of the corset.) When you’re done check the good side of your corset and re do any stiches that you don’t like.

You can also sew this by hand if you really want to.

The Maybe-Silver Lining!

This is pretty straight forward.

Serge the edges of each piece,

Iron pieces to their interfacing partner

Sew as above without bothering with the boning channels.

Press your seams.

BAM. done. We’ve done most of the sewing now, installing the cups will wait until we have the bones cut, tipped and ready to go.

Post navigation

One thought on “Sew Along Pt 3 – Finally, we Sew!”

Just to make it clear: you skipped the whole part about the foam stabilizer onto the underlining fabric? I have to admit not expecting to see “foam stabilizer” in the materials/instructions of the pattern and I find that step a bit odd (plus I’m not quite sure what it is and what makes it more special than woven fusible interfacing…) Especially since the foam stabilizer would basically get glued to my coutil which is already my strongest fabric..